On the grounds that conservatives must always rejoice in tyrants’ ends, this is a day to be celebrated as the anniversary of Mao Zedong’s death in 1976. We still do not know exactly how many millions of deaths he was responsible for but information is slowly emerging.

Nor can we compute the tens, if not hundreds, of millions of broken lives, bodies and souls; the attempted (thankfully failed) destruction of a great culture; the economic and political catastrophe that the Chinese and through them others still have to deal with.

Then there are the nauseating Western supporters of Mao, all in the comfort of their “despicable” capitalist societies. The sun is shining, the world seems quite a decent place (just quite, you understand) so, perhaps, the less said about them, the better.